I am currently stuck between a digital rock and hard place. To create the desired visual effect for Project Rebirth, I need to use the Visual Effect Graph and ShaderGraph packages. ShaderGraph allows for easy creation of custom shaders without extensive shader programming knowledge. I have already used ShaderGraph to create a shader for Magic Conjured weapon, which uses a dissolve effect. Visual Effect Graph allows the particle system to be ran on GPU instead of the CPU. Considering some of the VFX I have in mind for spells, this is an essential requirement for my project.
However, in order to use either of these packages, you have to use the Scriptable Render Pipeline, SRP. No sweat, you might be thinking. Unity has two-production ready Render Pipelines ready for use free of charge, the High Definition Render Pipeline and the Universal Render Pipeline, HDRP and URP. Unfortunately based on my testing, for the average Indie Dev, who is not using URP for a mobile game, these systems are not ready for usage.
Issues
I know what you are probably saying. “HDRP and URP are built-in ready to go. Why can’t I just use them?” Well it depends on how much you already know or willing to learn about cinematography and lighting. HDRP completely overhauls the existing camera and light systems. HDRP uses Physical Light Units (PLU) for its lighting. These units are based on real-life light measurements, like those you see on light bulb packaging or a photographic light meter. HDRP provides different methods of producing sky within your Unity Project. You can choose which sky type to use for each Volume in your Scene by altering the Sky Type property in the Volume’s Visual Environment override. As great as HDRP is most indies do not the time or want to invest in learning another system when there is still so much other work to do. And this doesn’t even type on the number of professional camera setting that were unlocked. Camera Sensor type, Aperture Shape, and Lens setting can now be adjusted.
On the other side is URP. While it retaining all the classic setting and variable, it just look visual worst that the default system and have greater limitations. Some of the limitation are as follows:
- Only a single Directional Light can produce for real-time shadows.
- Dynamic Batching (Shadows) is in development
- Single pass shading
- Limits on the number of light effecting objects.
If you want to look more into the differences between URP and the default Render, You can check out the Unity comparison page here. This will give you the most up-to-date info.
Where Do We Go From Here?
So you are anything like me, you the HDRP system is a like a giving a toddler a $3000 camera and using the URP is trying to make a $50 million feature length film using a cell phone. There is need for something the provides the best of both world. High quality vision without requiring a bachelor’s of arts in filmography to create. This mean take the scriptable renderer pipeline system and extending to meet me needs. I could spend the time learn the HDRP, but with this being the future of Unity, I need to learn it. And not everyone needs AAA level rendering tools
So if you want to learn more about SRP, follow along. I will be adding a link to my git repo once I get it up and going. I think in the next post. I will be building a base test scene for comparisons of Default, URP, and HDRP comparisons.